Sat Mar 29, 2014 12:32 am
There was a study in 1992 on the attempt rate on non legal birds during the Teal season, but he does not have the report or know where it may be found.
But he quoted this from the report on the 1965-67 experimental teal season:
(FYI he said the file is way too long to post up and he does not know anywhere on the net that there is place to link it to).
The second matter of concern has been the inability (or unwillingness ?) of many hunters to avoid shooting other species of ducks -- species which it is illegal to shoot during the teal season -- whenever an opportunity presents itself. The conclusion reached after the first season, that the illegal kill did not adversely affect the population status of any species (with the possible exception of the mottled duck) does not mean that the illegal activity is not a problem. Taking into account only those hunting parties that were observed to have an opportunity to fire at protected species during the 3 years, 41, 43, and 47% of those parties respectively did fire (Table 9). The fact that the kill of illegal species was comparatively low was due to 3 factors. First, there were many more teal than other species in most areas. Second, fewer shots per flight were fired at protected species than were fired at teal. Third, related to this was the fact that illegal species tended to fly higher, were more wary, and as a result, were less vulnerable to shooting. It appears that compliance with the "teal only" provision of the experimental season was very poor in most areas. Perhaps of even greater significance is the lack of evidence that either willingness or ability of hunters to shoot only at teal improved in succeeding years. If anything, the data suggest that the proportion firing at protected species increased during the course of the experiment.
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God, help me be the man that my dog thinks that I am.